Vermiculture Project

I haven’t forgotten about posting, but there isn’t really a lot to post.  The squirm is doing great since the harvest the first part of June.  It had been only about 8-10 weeks working, but being my first bin, I was wondering how things were going.

Harvested a few casings, and about 2.5 gals. of castings.  I put the castings in a 5 gal bucket and found a few worms and egg casings in it later.  I am keeping contents moist and fed, and they are multiplying.  There aren’t very many, maybe a couple doz. at the current time, but they are still alive and eating so life must be good with them.

The main bin is growing also.  It is on the dry side of the chart, but they seem happy and healthy with no wanderers.  I keep a bin sized piece of burlap on top and soak that when things really seem dry.  I let it drip excess water and don’t squeeze any out.  It gets put back on top of bin and closed up.  The plastic bin has no holes anywhere and there is no excess water or moisture on the bottom.

The bin needs more shredded paper added right now, and will probably do that this weekend.  I will soak the paper first then let it drip out some before it goes into the bin.

Cindy

Just a continuing  post here.  Worms are still eating very well, and their favorite still seems to be canned pumpkin.  The pictures below show some chow when added and what it looked like 5 days later.

This picture above was taken when food was added April 24, 2007.

This picture was taken April 29, 2007 of the location the above food was placed.  I think it took a little longer to get cleaned up due to the fact that it was at the opposite end of the bin and it took the squirm a little bit to get from one end to the other.

I put another cup of food in the evening of the 29th.  It consisted of leftover canned fruit cocktail that had been frozen, thawed and then run thru the processor.  I also placed a couple tablespoons of pumpkin leading to the food bar.  A lot of worms stopped at the pumpkin before they headed to the real salad bar.  It doesn’t seem to be getting worked on very fast, so will wait and see.

There was a lot of moisture in that last cup of chow.  I drained off as much that drained in about an hour.  Still pretty moist though.  The bin continues to be dry except where the food is placed.

I also added a little more dry shredded paper that got incorporated pretty fast.  Moisture content continues to hold well.  Before the last feeding, I mixed things up pretty well while checking the bottom of the bin for excess moisture..  There is none.  There are a lot of worms in the very bottom, but really mixed well in the rest of bedding throughout the bin.

With the amount of moisture in the last feeding, there was no need to spirtz the surface.  They still seem to enjoy the burlap that I do spritz when it drys out.  I can tell when it is too dry because the worms leave it.  Within an hour or so after spritzing, not soaking, just spritzing, they are back to it and inbetween the folds.

I also noticed that the area under the burlap that covers the food, there are a lot of castings as can be seen in the second picture.  Also from the concentration of worms under the burlap, it is kept more moist than the rest of the top layer of bedding.

Temperature in the bin is holding at 70 DF with the exception of a couple areas on the bedding along the sides of the bin and that is 68 DF.

So far everything looks fine, no fatalities, no worms on the sides of bin above bedding line, and no escapees.

Cindy

I’m not real sure what happened to this first batch of worms, I think we have decided it was an alien abduction.

They just sorta disappeared.  Inside 3 weeks there wasn’t a worm in the bin.  They didn’t go on a walk-about, and we didn’t see any deceased worms in the bin.  So there is one for the missing worms division.

So we started fresh on the 19th of April.  I washed out the bin, air dried it, and soaked the paper strips and put them in the bin.  The little bit that ended up in the bottom was soaked up with strips of cardboard.

Left out of this mix were a few things.  One thing left out was the sand I put in the bottom to help soak up any excess liquid.  That is one item that may have caused problems.  Our valley once was a River bottom.  Thinking maybe the sand contained too much salinity.  The aged horse manure was also left out of the mix.  My first feeding for the missing batch of worms was some orange slices, which they readily ate.

This second batch of worms, also 2 lbs. was placed in a bin with nothing but shredded paper, cardboard, and some cut strips of cardboard.  It was soaked and placed in the bin a week prior to ordering the worms.  The moisture content was monitored daily and excess run-off was taken care of by adding more shredded cardboard.

By the time the worms arrived, the bedding was what I would consider just past the damp stage, but diffenantly not dripping.  I am wondering if the first bin was too dry also.  We have a very low humidity in our area and while I was sooo worried about not letting it get too wet, I may have gone too far the other way.

This bin is a 8 days old now, and it is doing very well.  I gave them a welcome home meal of canned pumpkin which they dove into head first.

The 22nd of April I added 1 cup of processed green kitchen waste with a few more tablespoons of pumpkin.  It took them 2.5 days to eat the green stuff beyond recognition.

I gave them another couple days to finish off what they were chowing on that I couldn’t see.  The 25th I put another cup of processed chow in and put it on the other end from first feeding.  I also put in  2 stips of burlap.  Man they love that.  I put pumpkin inside it and folded it in half, I peeked at them that night and the tables and chairs were all occupied.

I also placed the second piece of burlap over the cup of food.  It took them a while to find it since it was opposite where most of them were.  Two days into the last feeding and its starting to blend in with the paper and 3/4 of it is unrecognizable and they are working feverishly on it.  I also find that I have to spray it daily to keep the moisture content up.  The lid is and has been closed since day one and there are no moisture tracks on sides.  The temperature is holding steady at 72 DF around the sides and it varies a little in the squirm and food area but hasn’t gone over 76.

Haven’t found any cocoons yet, but haven’t really pawed around looking either.  There are new worms roaming around tho, those I can see.

This batch of worms look a lot better than the first, even though its only 8 days.  Here are a couple pictures of the new family.

This is a few of the residence of the burlap.

This is the last feeding I did.

Will keep this going as often as necessary.  Like I said before, things don’t happen fast with these little critters.

Cindy

Like I said in last post, things happen rather slowly with these little critters.  So not a lot to post.

The first goal is to get the worm farm producing and become happy with their enviroment.

Next is to use the castings for our garden.  Since we are in the SW part of Utah that is considered the high desert, we need all the help with the soil we can get.  We have a lot of sand and not a lot of dirt, at least that we have found yet.  I know there has to be some dirt somewhere, just haven’t found it yet.

We have ready access to horse and sheep manure.  There are a couple dairy farms down the road that could supply the small amount of cow manure we would need.  We have 6 trees of some kind of elm with very small leaves and enough wind that when leaves fall, they don’t stay around long enough to be able to use them.

After we start producing enough vermicompost for our use, we will get excess to the neighbors that have either hot houses, or outdoor gardens.  Eventually we hope to start selling the vermicompost in the local area.

As soon as the weather breaks and the ground warms up, we will get an outdoor bin started.  If things go as planned, we would like to move up to a small wind row area of worms.

I didn’t realize there was so much to learn about these little critters.  I think it is going to be a fun project and hopefully profitable in the future.

Cindy

Not a lot to post. Things happen pretty slowly with these little critters.

Since the top layer of shredded paper seemed to be drying out, and I didn’t really want to spritz them with water, I decided to put the lid down on the bin last night. I guess that was not the move to make. I had a few that met their demise when they decided to do a walkabout. I rescued a few more that appeared to still be in this realm of existence and put them back in where they belonged and left the lid up.

I do have a lot of little bitty ones, but still haven’t found a cocoon. They are eating the chow I have in there for them so I know they aren’t starving. The biggest thing now is to regulate the amount of moisture. Nothing is soggy so maybe things are good with them. Temperature is maintaining 68 degrees.

Check back periodically for updates.

Cindy

Welcome to my ongoing blog about Vermicomposting/Vermiculture.

Since I am just starting this project, I decided now would be a good time to start this blog so I can keep up with it as it happens and as I learn.

I can hear you now. Why on earth do you want to play with a bunch of yuckie worms. Well there are a lot of reasons.

I live in what they refer to as the “High Desert” of SW Utah. There is more sand than dirt. The dirt that is here gives a new meaning to Dirt Poor. Worm castings will turn the dirt/soil out here to gold. That should help our garden more than a little.

We don’t have a lot of water “rights” so have to be a little frugal with our water usage. Worms don’t need much more than a misting of water everyday or two to stay happy.

They are composting fools. We can cut down on the amount of garbage that goes to the landfill. Almost anything humans eat, worms will eat with the exception of dairy and meat products, or greasy foods. Other things on their list of foodstuffs is cardboard, shredded paper, sand (to aid in digestion and we have a little of that), manure from most farm animals, (not dogs and cats though as a rule) moldy hay and straw, leaves, and greens from last years garden. Crushed up egg shells to keep the Ph balance in the bedding is also a good thing. They love veggies, fruits, used coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, corn meal, and bread products. I have probably forgotten a few items. There is really not much they don’t like so they are very easy keepers.

Worms also don’t need elaborate housing. You can get as fancy as You want, it doesn’t really matter to the worms. As long as they have enough to eat, enough moisture, and the proper temperature range, they are happy campers.

I will get some pictures up maybe tomorrow of our starting worm farm and tell you about a few of our goals with this project.

Cindy